


Sports Night Drabbles (2004-present)

by Mireille



Category: Sports Night
Genre: Drabble Collection, F/M, Gen, M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2004-02-02
Updated: 2005-08-08
Packaged: 2019-03-09 15:22:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 16
Words: 2,489
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13484319
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mireille/pseuds/Mireille
Summary: A collection of my Sports Night drabbles (mostly written long ago for sn100 on LiveJournal) and other very short pieces.Tags/rating will be updated to reflect new drabbles added.Assume Dan/Casey unless otherwise specified. Other pairings will be added to tags and included in chapter titles, but 99% of everything I write in SN is Dan/Casey.





	1. About Time (Dan/Casey; sn100: "if I'm honest")

It was over a year before Dan got the courage to ask, but eventually he had to. "When you turned down Conan--what were you _thinking_?" 

"That we'd be a good team, and we--"

"Don't give me that. _Why_?"

"I can't tell you."

"Won't, you mean."

" _Can't_. If I'm honest, you'll hate me, Danny, and I _can't_ ," he whispered.

"I could never hate you," Dan said, warning himself not to jump to conclusions.

"Yeah? What if I did _this_?" Suddenly, Casey kissed him. 

As kisses went, it wasn't particularly impressive, but Dan grinned. "Then I'd say it was about time."


	2. The Fine Art of Falling Apart (Dan/Casey; sn100: Matthew Good Band titles)

Casey said he didn't mind that there were nights that Dan was quiet--"whatever you need to do, Danny"--but Dan minded enough for two. 

He minded that he was good on television, good at making jokes, good at running away, but not at telling anyone, even himself, what was going on in his head. 

More than anything, he minded that what he _really_ needed from Casey--just to put his arms around Casey and cling to him and make him promise that he was never going to leave--he wouldn't be able to ask for in a million years.


	3. sn100: "morning"

Dan saw a lot of mornings--finish the show, hang around for a while, go out with everyone, and the next thing you know, the sun's coming up, and he'd better crash if he wanted any sleep at all.

This was definitely not most mornings, because most mornings, when he saw dawn, he hadn't been in bed for the last several hours. And most mornings, when he went to go look at the sunrise, he didn't have to push Casey off his chest first to do it.

All early mornings sucked, but this one was a lot better than most.


	4. The Test Dream (sn100: Sopranos titles)

"You feeling okay, Danny?" Casey asked. "You look wiped out."

Dan nodded. "I just didn't sleep well. I kept having nightmares." He shook his head. "I hadn't had the test dream in years."

"The test dream?"

"You know, where you're taking a final exam that you didn't study for? Everyone has that dream, I thought."

"Oh, that one. Yeah, I've had it. Sometimes, just to make it worse, not only haven't I studied, but I look down and realize I'm naked."

Dan grinned. "And if there'd been a naked Casey in my dream, it would have stopped being a nightmare."


	5. Nothing (Dan; sn100: "fear")

If anyone asked him, Dan would tell them he was afraid of nothing. He wouldn’t even be lying. The others would believe that he was boasting that he wasn't afraid of anything, but that wasn't what he meant. 

He was afraid of nothing. Of waking up one morning and realizing that he had nothing: that he really was just Casey's Ed McMahon. That everything his father had thought and never (quite) said was true, and it would be better if he'd died instead of Sam.

That there wasn't any more to Dan Rydell but the face he showed the world.


	6. Wet (sn100: "water")

Casey's hair was dark brown when it was wet, and there were droplets of water clinging to his eyelashes, making him blink rapidly to keep it out of his eyes. When Dan kissed him, his skin was warm and wet, and there were trails of water Dan's tongue could follow.

Then there were more kisses, and the slide of hands over soapy skin, and Casey's soft gasp when Dan pressed against him to wash his back.

If this was what happened when they overslept and had to "save time" by showering together, Dan thought, maybe he should break the clock.


	7. sn100: "routine" (Kim - implied Casey/Dana and Casey/Dan)

People kept telling Kim how exciting her job must be. Exciting, hah. 

Not that she didn't love her job, but _really_. There were certain things you could just count on, every single day. 

Every rundown meeting contained no less than four extended tangents, at least one having nothing to do with sports. 

Casey and Dana were going to do a weird are-they-or-aren't-they-flirting thing whenever they talked. 

So were Casey and Dan, though Will said she was dreaming that one. 

And the network suits were going to be assholes. 

Same things happened every day. You could set your watch by them.


	8. sn100: "strategy" (Dana/Casey, Dana/Sam)

She'd had a plan with Casey. Several plans, to be honest; there had been the "deny everything" plan, and the "wait for Casey to do something" plan, and the six-month dating plan for Casey (she still thought that had been a good idea, even if it hadn't all worked out the way she'd hoped), and finally the "acknowledge that it isn't going to happen and move on" plan. After that, she'd decided that developing strategies for handling her personal life might not be the best way to go. 

When Sam left anyway, she started wondering if it was just her.


	9. sn100: "protesting" (gen ensemble)

"Do you know what's wrong with the world today?" 

Dana looked up from her clipboard. "That we have nothing in the thirties?" 

Dan shook his head. "That people aren't willing to stand up for what they believe in. Protest marches. Demonstrations. The civil rights movement. Rosa Parks."

"Didn't Isaac say you couldn't use Rosa Parks as an example any more?"

"I'm just saying. The world would be a better place if people fought for what was important."

"Why are you telling me this?"

Casey grinned. "He wants to stage a sit-in. The craft services table was out of bagels again."


	10. sn100: "love and/or hate"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Set between "Draft Day: The Fall of Ryan O'Brian" and "April is the Cruelest Month."

He didn't hate Casey all the time, but sometimes, he did. He hated him for making the list when Dan hadn't, and he hated him for calling _Sports Night_ "my show."

He hated him for forgetting that it hadn't been _that_ long ago that the network had wanted to fire Casey, when he'd been such a mess after Lisa left him, and that Dan had been in his corner the entire time. 

He'd have shrugged it all off if it was anyone else. But it was Casey, and nobody else could hurt him like Casey could. 

He hated that, too.


	11. Dan/Casey

If there was a statute of limitations on how long you could take between kissing your best friend while trapped in an elevator and getting around to making the next move, Dan was about to exceed it. At least, that was Casey's opinion, and Casey was the one who was getting very tired of waiting. 

That was why, on their way downstairs, Casey hit the "stop" button.

"Are you nuts?" Dan demanded.

"You kissed me the other night." 

"Uh, yes."

"Do you want to do it again?"

"Casey, what are you--"

"Do you?" When Dan nodded, Casey grinned. "Then stop looking at the floor and tell me you're coming home with me tonight."

"Are you sure?"

"I'm never sure. But I'm serious."

Dan grinned back at him. "Do I get the thing with the hollowed-out grapefruit?"

"If you play your cards right," Casey said, as the elevator started again.


	12. Dana's fear of fish (gen)

Dana glowered at Elliott and Kim--not because she thought they were responsible for this, but because they'd made the mistake of being the first ones at the rundown meeting.

The room began to fill up, and she temporarily stopped glaring. Finally, Casey and Dan arrived, and Dana cleared her throat, ready to start the meeting.

"I understand that you're all trying to help me get over my phobia," she said, through clenched teeth, "but if I find out who left _One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish_ on my desk, they'll need to have Dr. Seuss surgically removed."


	13. Dan/Casey

"It isn't that you were voted cooler than me."

"Of course not."

"And it's not that you cheated."

"No."

"It's that you wouldn't just admit that you'd cheated."

"Of course it was."

"You're humoring me, aren't you?"

"Would I do that?"

"If you know what's good for you, yes."

"Look on the bright side."

"There's a bright side?"

"You may not be the coolest anchor on 'Sports Night'--"

"Says you."

"Says the Internet. But at least you're cool enough to seduce him."

"He thinks 'Afternoon Delight' is cool. Maybe I don't want to seduce him."

"Maybe it's too late."


	14. The No-Touching Rule (Dan/Casey)

Rule number one was "no touching at work."

That wasn't the exact rule, of course; he and Dan touched all the time. They always had, and it'd look weird if they suddenly stopped. They both knew what it meant, though.

No tracing Dan's lower lip with his thumb. No peeling off Dan's shirt to plant kisses on his chest, no making sure to skim his fingertips over all the places Dan was ticklish, just to see his expression as he tried to squirm away. 

Casey loved his job, but there were nights he was glad when the show was over.


	15. Karma (Dan&Casey gen)

Casey had very intentionally not asked Dan why he was sulking. For one thing, he _knew_ why Dan was sulking. For another, it wasn't as though Dan wasn't going to tell him anyway. Casey gave it five minutes.

He was wrong, as it happened; it took five and a half. "Why did I get stuck with the soccer highlights?" Dan asked. 

"Because vengeance is Dana's."

"When did this become a Biblical epic and not a sports show?"

"When you were responsible for a twenty-minute tangent at the noon rundown."

"That was as much Jeremy's fault as it was mine."

"See, I don't think Dana sees it like that. I think she sees it as you _knowing_ that Jeremy would be a font of pointless water-polo statistics, and getting him started anyway." 

"That's one way to look at it. Another way is that I had a legitimate question, and Jeremy got carried away." 

"However you look at it, you're doing the soccer highlights." 

"You could at least volunteer to write it for me." 

"Why would I do that?"

"Because the last time I did it, we got over a hundred complaints."

Casey shrugged, grinning. "It wasn't me Isaac read them all to."

"It wasn't all of them, just the edited highlights. Isaac said one of them was six pages long."

"So if I'm not the one suffering through the edited highlights, why should I write the script for you?"

"Karma."

"Try again."

"For the good of the show?"

"Better, but not quite enough."

"Because you're terrible at telling me no?" He'd have been better at telling Dan "no" if Dan hadn't been good at giving him a look that made Casey feel... not guilty, not exactly, but pretty close to it, for not doing this one thing that would make Dan happy. 

"I could probably use some good karma," he said, after withstanding the look as long as he could. When Dan completely failed to avoid looking smug, Casey added, "But you owe me."

Dan grinned. "I think I can live with that."

"Don't be too sure," Casey said, and started trying to think of what he was going to say about soccer.


	16. Springs Eternal (Dan/Casey)

"I'm just saying," Casey said, as though he hadn't been "just saying" it for the past fifteen minutes, "that the National League Central isn't going to hold a lot of people's interest. There are twelve games between first and second place."

"So we just ignore it?" Dan said, looking around the room for support. "We ignore an entire division?"

"We don't ignore it. We just give a little more attention to divisions where there's actually _competition_ going on. The NL East, for example; there are only five and a half games between first and last place. Or the American League East. Except for Tampa Bay," he added. "They're what, twenty games back?" 

"Twenty-one and a half," Jeremy corrected. 

"So now that it's past the All-Star break, we put more focus on the teams that have a chance of making it to the playoffs," Casey said. "They're the ones that are going to attract national interest. No one cares what Tampa Bay is doing right now unless they live in Florida."

Dan frowned. Natalie was nodding along with Casey. He had to get _someone_ to see his side. "So you're saying we're in the business of killing hope." 

"Do you think we could go with a little less hyperbole?" Dana said, tapping her pencil on her clipboard. "This is supposed to be the noon rundown, not noon to nine. Some of us have work to do. Some of us who are you," she added, giving Dan a look. 

"No, Dan has a point," Jeremy said. "People need hope. They need to be able to think that even if their team is twenty-one and a half games back in August, they could still be cheering them on in game seven of the Series. They need--"

"Oh, God," someone muttered; Dan didn't look around to see who it was. Any day that Jeremy wasn't on his side, it could have been him. 

Jeremy went on, unfazed. "They need to be able to believe that no matter how unlikely it is, and how little evidence is on their side, _this_ is going to be their year. This is going to be the time when it happens. This is going to be the year that--"

"People want to hear about teams that have a chance of winning," Kim interrupted. 

"Then how do you explain Cubs fans?" Dan argued. "That belief that this is going to be the time that all that waiting and hoping is going to pay off," he answered himself, turning from Kim to Casey. "Not giving those teams any air time--we're telling them to give up on what they've been hoping for all this time."

"...Ratings, Danny," Dana said, finally. "We like them. We want them. We _need_ them. And more people are going to watch us if we're talking about the Yankees than if we're talking about Tampa Bay."

Dan shrugged. "I'm just saying," he said, in a conscious imitation of Casey, "that we should still give the other divisions some air time." 

Dana glanced at her watch. "Which we've all agreed with, so why are we arguing? No, save it. Right now, I have another meeting... five minutes ago." She gathered her things quickly and hurried out of the room. Everyone else followed, wanting to get back to their own work, until Casey and Dan were the only two left. 

Casey frowned. "What is this about, Danny?"

"It's about hope," Dan said, shrugging. "Jeremy's right. People _do_ need to be able to believe that it's all going to come together somehow. That no matter how many stupid things happen in the meantime, one of these days, if they keep holding on, what they've been waiting for is going to happen."

The silence hung heavily between them for a moment, before Casey cleared his throat. "Are we still talking about baseball?"

"Yes," Dan said quickly. "It could be applied to all sports in general, but specifically, we're talking about baseball."

"Yeah," Casey said, slowly. "Then in that case...tell the Cubs I think this is gonna be their year."

**Author's Note:**

> [me on tumblr](https://mireille719.tumblr.com/)


End file.
